I am very pleased to contribute my message to this column to celebrate His Majesty the Emperor Akihito's 79th Birthday. On the 23rd of December 2012, His Majesty will be 79 years old. The Imperial House of Japan is one of the oldest monarchies in the world with the long history of about 2,700 years.
And His Majesty the Emperor Akihito is the 125th Emperor of Japan, the latest in the oldest continuing line of hereditary monarchy in the world. Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress have brought the Imperial Family even closer to the people of Japan and have travelled many countries promoting friendship and goodwill among the peoples in the world. Their Majesties visited Pakistan in 1962 as then Crown Prince and Princess.
The year 2012 was a very memorable year for Japan and Pakistan, being the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between Japan and Pakistan. The Consulate-General of Japan at Karachi held a series of commemorative events to further strengthen the friendly relationship between the two countries throughout the year such as Japan Festival in March. The relationship between Japan and Pakistan has become closer these years and is expected to be further developed in the future.
Japan has been extending ODA to Pakistan since 1954 and the cumulative amount of ODA up to 2010 is about 5.9 billion US dollars. In the area of emergency aid, Japan provided emergency assistance to Pakistan at the time of earthquake in 2005 and the floods in 2010 and 2011 and this year Japan has provided emergency relief goods such as tents, blankets, etc worth 35 million yen and food, shelter and water, etc worth 4.7 million US dollars through UN organisations.
Pakistan too extended assistance to Japan at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March last year. Pakistan provided relief goods such as mineral water, milk and biscuits to Japan and the Pakistani people in Japan went to Tohoku region to help victims, catering tasty Pakistani curry dishes. I would like to express our sincere gratitude for the generous support from the Pakistani people. A friend in need is a friend indeed. This proves the cordial and friendly relationship existing between Japan and Pakistan.
I arrived in Karachi on the 8th of November 2012. And I have noticed that Pakistan is a country with great potential for economic growth and Karachi is the key area for such economic growth with the population of 18 million.
I would like to introduce the activities done by the Japan Information and Culture Center of the Consulate-General of Japan at Karachi. The JICC has a library, an exhibition hall and a reading room for the Pakistani people to get to know about Japan. We have Japanese language courses and flower arrangement courses and we organise various cultural events such as film shows, exhibitions, etc at the Center. The books and DVDs can be borrowed by becoming a member of the Library of the Center. And also the Websites of the Consulate-General of Japan (http://www.kr.pk.emb-japan.go.jp), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Website called "Web Japan" (http://web-japan.org) are available for you to get information on Japan and the Japanese people.
I wish the economic relations, cultural exchange and people-to-people exchange between Japan and Pakistan will be further promoted and I, as the Consul-General of Japan in Karachi, will make every effort to achieve that goal.
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